Glorious Urfa, part II
As it got dark, hunger pangs began to assail us, so we walked down the main drag from our hotel towards the bazaar. You walk for about 10 minnutes or so, passing a small mosque in the median of the street- at the end of the street New Urfa ends abruptly, and the rabbit warren of alleys immediately confronting you is the bazaar.
Before the bazaar, however, is a small square, with three or four kebab stands with wooden tables out front. They're easy to find, particularly if you are hungry, as the tantalizing smell of lamb travels quite a ways in the warm air here.
After a brief scrimmage where players from opposing kebab teams attempt to get you to sit at their restaurant, we sat (were seated?) at the Haji Baba Kebaplari. The lamb kepab comes ready to assemble, with various juices, condiments, and mint leaves. The tables are long wooden picnic style things, so we ended up sharing ours with a group of students at the local veterinary university, who spoke excellent English and instructed us as to the proper way to assemble a Kebab. We spent an hour or so eating and discussing everything from politics to circumcision (I revealed that, unlike most Europeans, the majority of American guys are snipped. Gokhan the future veterinarian found this an excellent thing. Don't ask me how this subject came up). In general, the crew were proudly Turkish, seriously Muslim, but also quite liberal. They didn't have much time for the currently ruling, mildly Islamist AK party. Whenever something Gokhan didn't care for came up, he would brush it off with "Not suitable for Erdogan (the current PM, who he thinks is far too interested in people's private lives)."
So, a night of sleep at the tranquil Ipek Palas, and then, the next morning, the bazaar.
The Urfa Bazaar
The Bazaar at Urfa is a sadly overlooked classic of the genre. It's one of the best (after Marrakesh, of course, but blowing Samarkand away). We entered the rabbit warren and spent about 4 hours just wandering. I can't give you any sort of sensible directions on how to get around. Streets twist and turn, and constantly present you with surprises- such as a metalworkers row, a pigeon souq, or a shady caffee shop with Ottoman Samovars on the tables. Here are a few highlights:
Arab dude
textile shop
The Pigeon Souq was a trip. Apparently, a great many people in Urfa love pigeons. I mean, really love them, the way some people love stamps.I believe they collect, breed, pedigree, and train them. There is an entire section of the bazaar dedicated to pigeons. I was looking about at the various coups full of some rather unusual examples of pigeonry when a local seized me and dragged me into what, I assume, is the inner sanctum of Colombofilia (the ancient and noble sport of pigeon racing. No, I am not joking). People breed and bet on pigeons, apparently, the way other people do horses. And I was in luck. It was show time.
I entered a strangely lit room full of pigeons, and about forty dudes sipping tea and intently examining them. The pigeons were well trained, continuously walking up and down the staircase in the picture. The locals greeted my arrival with friendly noods, and a few even showed me their prize birds, which are identified by little bracelets on their feet.
I expressed, I believe to their satisfaction, my high opinion of the quality of their birds. They then bid me adieu, and I continued to investigate the bazaar.
At some point I saw a horse in a doorway, and took what I thought was a surreptitious picture. The owner of the horse then invited me in to take a closer look, admire his horse, and take more photos.
Friendly folks in Urfa.
Meat sellers
As night fell, we met our friends from the previous evening, ate a fabulous dinner, and watched a movie (in English with subtitles, thank God). Before we begin our next stage, a few more shots of glorious Urfa:
Ottoman mansion, now chamber of commerce
more locals
graveyard
We woke the next morning and headed for perhaps the strangest element of our trip. But that is a story for tomorrow.
The train to Syria
Borders are strange things, particularly in the "older" parts of the world, where the lines drawn by contemporary politicians rarely reflect the tenacious ghosts of history. In tribe ridden Europe, crowned all about with soaring mountain ridges which plunge into deep valleys, and watered by countless courses from the mighty to the miniscule , borders snake back and forth according to the natural features of the landscape and (more or less) the dialect of the locals. These borders are the results of centuries of bloodletting and cultural assimilation (sometimes forced) in the pursuit of the opium dream of "national unity."
Outside of Europe borders tend to be more artificial affairs- often because they were imposed by Europeans upon people with whom they were not familiar, in landscapes which were strange to them. These borders are often criticized for being arbitrary, but it is difficult to see how it could be otherwise, particularly in cases where different tribes live cheek by jowl and have limited experience in the western ideological straitjacket known as "the state."
As befits Turkey, a country straddling East and West, its borders are a bit of both. In the West, the end of the First World War and the subsequent population exchange created a "modern" border, with Greeks on one side and Turks on the other (Bulgaria is a bit more thorny, with a few "Turks" remaining). In the East, the fall of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire created a number of new states, namely Syria and Iraq, but you would have been hard pressed to find "Syrians" or Iraqis. In many ways, it is still hard to find Iraqis, as Western style nationalism remains largely a chimera in the face of tribalism and Islam.
Nevertheless, the victory of the allies and the establishment of Syria and Iraq (albeit under western "mandates") were facts on the ground, and borders had to be drawn. The question was how to draw them. As the region is thoroughly Muslim, religion is no solid foundation to build a state (an entity which needs borders the way a human body needs skin). Nor could language serve. One needs only to look at the following map to see why (keep in mind that this is after the better part of a century spent assimilating minority groups to the hegemonic culture, in 1921 the situation was even more confused).
The treaties of Ankara (1921) and Lausanne (1923) had to deal with the fact that the area being demarcated between Syria and Turkey was rather flat. With the lack of natural features, it chose an artificial one- the old Ottoman railway.
Between Karkamis and Nusaybin the border between Turkey and Syria is exactly the rails themselves. In other areas the railway departs from Turkey, enters Syria, and then later returns to Turkey. This was problematic, partly because it is difficult to operate a railway from only one side of the tracks, and also because back then there were hardly any roads to speak of- keeping the train running was important to the economies of both states.
A Solomonic decision split the baby, so to speak, giving the Turks the right to use the railway stations on the Syrian side of the tracks and granting the Turks extraterritorial rights where the tracks entirely left Turkey.
The thing about extraterritorial rights is that, like muscles, if you don't use them, you lose them. Even shared sovereignty must be exercised. Today, with the construction of highways, the rail line has become almost an afterthought. I had the suspicion, though, that it would still be used, if only so that the Turks could maintain their claims.
So I went searching for a way to get into Syria through the backdoor, even if only for a dozen miles or so. Particularly given that travel to Syria looks to be impossible for the time being (due to the civil war and all).
Preparing to leave Urfa, our next principal destination was Gaziantep. I very much wanted to know if I could travel south to Akcakale, hop on the train, and ride it through Syria. My internet research in the US yielded little, I found only one reference to such a trip. A guy had done it in the late 1970s, and said that, at that time, there were three trains a week from Nusaybin to Gaziantep. When we arrived in Turkey itself, the folks at the train stations in Istanbul had never heard of this train. Likewise later, in Urfa, similar ignorance was indicated. This didn't necessarily mean anything, however, as train schedules (due to no longer valid terrorism concerns) in the East are unpublished. It seemed the only thing to do was to head down to the border itself- Akcakale. I knew there were tracks there (thus was it the border). The question was, is there a train?
Akcakale border crossing
Even if there was no train, it wouldn't be a total loss. Near Akcakale is the famous village of Harran, once home to the Prophet Abraham, with traditional mud built beehive houses of the local Arab population. If there was no train,w e would jsut go to Harran.
We arrived at Akcakale by minibus, and began to inquire about the train to Gaziantep. Locals expressed surprise, and a unanimous opinion. "No train, Bus!" Even when I pointed out the tracks, they insisted that we would have to go by bus. Even the local kids expressed merriment at the crazy Gavur who wanted to take the train. No train, Bus!
So I sat despondently in the border crossing cafe sipping tea, looking at the glowering sky heavy with rain, and the miles long line of trucks that waited, civil war or no, to carry their goods to Mesopotamia.
Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to find the train station. The locals were no help at all, directing me (obviously) to the bus station. So I followed the tracks until I came to the station. For an abandoned railway station, it looked surprisingly modern.
Moreover, there were people there. Granted, there are always people at train stations. It doesn't mean they are going anywhere. I entered the station into the gloomy old hall, which looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since the time of Sultan Abdulhamid. A dour official sat behind grimy glass with spiderweb cracks. I inquired if there were a train to Gaziantep, to which he answered "15." I didn't know if he meant it was on the 15th, or at 15 o'clock (3 PM for the North Americans). After further inquiry, it emerged that there was indeed a train. In 15 minutes.
There are, in fact, two trains a week that still run, and we had stumbled upon the train station just in time to catch one. Abandoning thoughts of visiting Harran, we scurried to the local Bodega to stock up for the long trip.
More and more people began to arrive, and (on time even!) the train arrived. It consisted of about 20 cargo cars, and two passenger cars, one of which was stuffed with Turkish soldiers in full battle gear.
We got quite a few stares, although not unfriendly ones, and had no hassles about purchasing our tickets- which cost about 2 euros for the five hour trip. We boarded, helped up the steep stairs by a Turkish soldier with an M-16 strapped to his back, and the train rolled out.
The border at Akcakale
The clouds lifted, the sun shone, and we were off.
for the first hour or so, Turkey lay to the right side of the train, and Syria to the left.
The fertile Syrian plain
At one point, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere, next to a concrete bunker. Two men emerged from the bunker, one a soldier with an unslung assault rifle, the other a peasant carrying giant, old school, massive tins of milk. We were actually on an international milk train. The man boarded, and we set off again, shortly after taking a left and leaving the border posts far behind. We were in Syria. This was obvious not only from the fact that the Turkish border had dissapeared from view, but from the plethora of signs bearing the face of Syria's chinless dictator.
Appropriately, this looks like a scene from inside a prison
It was at this point that I left the compartment and, expressing my opinion of Bashar al-Assad, visited the bathroom to take a leak on Sovereign Syrian Soil.
take that Bashar!
Slapping on my Ipod, I began listening to Johnny Cash's immortal song about Route 66.
I been to Ad Darbasiyah, Aralik, Ras al Ain, Tell Abad and Achak,
I've been everywhere man, I've been everywhere
During the trip we ended up getting invited to the Conductor's cabin, one Osman, who has a nephew in Germany.
Osman, sitting directly under the no smoking sign, cheerfully offered us tea and cigarettes.
At one point his colleague came in, looked at their battered Samovar, and pronounced it "Kaput," throwing it out the window and returning with another one that, to my eye, looked no less Kaput.
We shared out crappy store bought cookies with the pair, they gave us tea, bread, and fruit, all the while cheerfully throwing the detritus of their meal onto the Syrian plain.
Every time we passed local Syrian shepherds, which was often, they would wave at the train cheerfully, waves and greetings which were returned by the passengers. They may well have been related, separated only by politics and other things asinine.
Eventually we returned permanently to Turkey and, having dipped out toes some days before in the frigid Tigris, crossed over its famous sister, the broad Euphrates river.
The Euphrates, though not as broad and mighty here as it is in Iraq, is clear, placid, and sky blue. Once it crosses the border it becomes muddy, turbulent.
At 7:30, after a very interesting ride indeed, we came finally to Gaziantep station.
A note for anyone interested in taking this train- this was on Friday, April 22nd. I believe that the train comes through on Tuesdays and Fridays, at about 13:00 (1 PM), although I can't guarantee Tuesdays. Also, train schedules in the East tend to change abruptly without notice. Nevertheless, if you show up at noon on Friday, you should have an even chance of catching the train.
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As it got dark, hunger pangs began to assail us, so we walked down the main drag from our hotel towards the bazaar. You walk for about 10 minnutes or so, passing a small mosque in the median of the street- at the end of the street New Urfa ends abruptly, and the rabbit warren of alleys immediately confronting you is the bazaar.
Before the bazaar, however, is a small square, with three or four kebab stands with wooden tables out front. They're easy to find, particularly if you are hungry, as the tantalizing smell of lamb travels quite a ways in the warm air here.
After a brief scrimmage where players from opposing kebab teams attempt to get you to sit at their restaurant, we sat (were seated?) at the Haji Baba Kebaplari. The lamb kepab comes ready to assemble, with various juices, condiments, and mint leaves. The tables are long wooden picnic style things, so we ended up sharing ours with a group of students at the local veterinary university, who spoke excellent English and instructed us as to the proper way to assemble a Kebab. We spent an hour or so eating and discussing everything from politics to circumcision (I revealed that, unlike most Europeans, the majority of American guys are snipped. Gokhan the future veterinarian found this an excellent thing. Don't ask me how this subject came up). In general, the crew were proudly Turkish, seriously Muslim, but also quite liberal. They didn't have much time for the currently ruling, mildly Islamist AK party. Whenever something Gokhan didn't care for came up, he would brush it off with "Not suitable for Erdogan (the current PM, who he thinks is far too interested in people's private lives)."
So, a night of sleep at the tranquil Ipek Palas, and then, the next morning, the bazaar.
The Urfa Bazaar
The Bazaar at Urfa is a sadly overlooked classic of the genre. It's one of the best (after Marrakesh, of course, but blowing Samarkand away). We entered the rabbit warren and spent about 4 hours just wandering. I can't give you any sort of sensible directions on how to get around. Streets twist and turn, and constantly present you with surprises- such as a metalworkers row, a pigeon souq, or a shady caffee shop with Ottoman Samovars on the tables. Here are a few highlights:
Arab dude
textile shop
The Pigeon Souq was a trip. Apparently, a great many people in Urfa love pigeons. I mean, really love them, the way some people love stamps.I believe they collect, breed, pedigree, and train them. There is an entire section of the bazaar dedicated to pigeons. I was looking about at the various coups full of some rather unusual examples of pigeonry when a local seized me and dragged me into what, I assume, is the inner sanctum of Colombofilia (the ancient and noble sport of pigeon racing. No, I am not joking). People breed and bet on pigeons, apparently, the way other people do horses. And I was in luck. It was show time.
I entered a strangely lit room full of pigeons, and about forty dudes sipping tea and intently examining them. The pigeons were well trained, continuously walking up and down the staircase in the picture. The locals greeted my arrival with friendly noods, and a few even showed me their prize birds, which are identified by little bracelets on their feet.
I expressed, I believe to their satisfaction, my high opinion of the quality of their birds. They then bid me adieu, and I continued to investigate the bazaar.
At some point I saw a horse in a doorway, and took what I thought was a surreptitious picture. The owner of the horse then invited me in to take a closer look, admire his horse, and take more photos.
Friendly folks in Urfa.
Meat sellers
As night fell, we met our friends from the previous evening, ate a fabulous dinner, and watched a movie (in English with subtitles, thank God). Before we begin our next stage, a few more shots of glorious Urfa:
Ottoman mansion, now chamber of commerce
more locals
graveyard
We woke the next morning and headed for perhaps the strangest element of our trip. But that is a story for tomorrow.
Burrell Imaging
www.burrellimaging.com
Making Amazing Possible
Borders are strange things, particularly in the "older" parts of the world, where the lines drawn by contemporary politicians rarely reflect the tenacious ghosts of history. In tribe ridden Europe, crowned all about with soaring mountain ridges which plunge into deep valleys, and watered by countless courses from the mighty to the miniscule , borders snake back and forth according to the natural features of the landscape and (more or less) the dialect of the locals. These borders are the results of centuries of bloodletting and cultural assimilation (sometimes forced) in the pursuit of the opium dream of "national unity."
Outside of Europe borders tend to be more artificial affairs- often because they were imposed by Europeans upon people with whom they were not familiar, in landscapes which were strange to them. These borders are often criticized for being arbitrary, but it is difficult to see how it could be otherwise, particularly in cases where different tribes live cheek by jowl and have limited experience in the western ideological straitjacket known as "the state."
As befits Turkey, a country straddling East and West, its borders are a bit of both. In the West, the end of the First World War and the subsequent population exchange created a "modern" border, with Greeks on one side and Turks on the other (Bulgaria is a bit more thorny, with a few "Turks" remaining). In the East, the fall of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire created a number of new states, namely Syria and Iraq, but you would have been hard pressed to find "Syrians" or Iraqis. In many ways, it is still hard to find Iraqis, as Western style nationalism remains largely a chimera in the face of tribalism and Islam.
Nevertheless, the victory of the allies and the establishment of Syria and Iraq (albeit under western "mandates") were facts on the ground, and borders had to be drawn. The question was how to draw them. As the region is thoroughly Muslim, religion is no solid foundation to build a state (an entity which needs borders the way a human body needs skin). Nor could language serve. One needs only to look at the following map to see why (keep in mind that this is after the better part of a century spent assimilating minority groups to the hegemonic culture, in 1921 the situation was even more confused).
The treaties of Ankara (1921) and Lausanne (1923) had to deal with the fact that the area being demarcated between Syria and Turkey was rather flat. With the lack of natural features, it chose an artificial one- the old Ottoman railway.
Between Karkamis and Nusaybin the border between Turkey and Syria is exactly the rails themselves. In other areas the railway departs from Turkey, enters Syria, and then later returns to Turkey. This was problematic, partly because it is difficult to operate a railway from only one side of the tracks, and also because back then there were hardly any roads to speak of- keeping the train running was important to the economies of both states.
A Solomonic decision split the baby, so to speak, giving the Turks the right to use the railway stations on the Syrian side of the tracks and granting the Turks extraterritorial rights where the tracks entirely left Turkey.
The thing about extraterritorial rights is that, like muscles, if you don't use them, you lose them. Even shared sovereignty must be exercised. Today, with the construction of highways, the rail line has become almost an afterthought. I had the suspicion, though, that it would still be used, if only so that the Turks could maintain their claims.
So I went searching for a way to get into Syria through the backdoor, even if only for a dozen miles or so. Particularly given that travel to Syria looks to be impossible for the time being (due to the civil war and all).
Preparing to leave Urfa, our next principal destination was Gaziantep. I very much wanted to know if I could travel south to Akcakale, hop on the train, and ride it through Syria. My internet research in the US yielded little, I found only one reference to such a trip. A guy had done it in the late 1970s, and said that, at that time, there were three trains a week from Nusaybin to Gaziantep. When we arrived in Turkey itself, the folks at the train stations in Istanbul had never heard of this train. Likewise later, in Urfa, similar ignorance was indicated. This didn't necessarily mean anything, however, as train schedules (due to no longer valid terrorism concerns) in the East are unpublished. It seemed the only thing to do was to head down to the border itself- Akcakale. I knew there were tracks there (thus was it the border). The question was, is there a train?
Akcakale border crossing
Even if there was no train, it wouldn't be a total loss. Near Akcakale is the famous village of Harran, once home to the Prophet Abraham, with traditional mud built beehive houses of the local Arab population. If there was no train,w e would jsut go to Harran.
We arrived at Akcakale by minibus, and began to inquire about the train to Gaziantep. Locals expressed surprise, and a unanimous opinion. "No train, Bus!" Even when I pointed out the tracks, they insisted that we would have to go by bus. Even the local kids expressed merriment at the crazy Gavur who wanted to take the train. No train, Bus!
So I sat despondently in the border crossing cafe sipping tea, looking at the glowering sky heavy with rain, and the miles long line of trucks that waited, civil war or no, to carry their goods to Mesopotamia.
Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to find the train station. The locals were no help at all, directing me (obviously) to the bus station. So I followed the tracks until I came to the station. For an abandoned railway station, it looked surprisingly modern.
Moreover, there were people there. Granted, there are always people at train stations. It doesn't mean they are going anywhere. I entered the station into the gloomy old hall, which looked as if it hadn't been cleaned since the time of Sultan Abdulhamid. A dour official sat behind grimy glass with spiderweb cracks. I inquired if there were a train to Gaziantep, to which he answered "15." I didn't know if he meant it was on the 15th, or at 15 o'clock (3 PM for the North Americans). After further inquiry, it emerged that there was indeed a train. In 15 minutes.
There are, in fact, two trains a week that still run, and we had stumbled upon the train station just in time to catch one. Abandoning thoughts of visiting Harran, we scurried to the local Bodega to stock up for the long trip.
More and more people began to arrive, and (on time even!) the train arrived. It consisted of about 20 cargo cars, and two passenger cars, one of which was stuffed with Turkish soldiers in full battle gear.
We got quite a few stares, although not unfriendly ones, and had no hassles about purchasing our tickets- which cost about 2 euros for the five hour trip. We boarded, helped up the steep stairs by a Turkish soldier with an M-16 strapped to his back, and the train rolled out.
The border at Akcakale
The clouds lifted, the sun shone, and we were off.
for the first hour or so, Turkey lay to the right side of the train, and Syria to the left.
The fertile Syrian plain
At one point, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere, next to a concrete bunker. Two men emerged from the bunker, one a soldier with an unslung assault rifle, the other a peasant carrying giant, old school, massive tins of milk. We were actually on an international milk train. The man boarded, and we set off again, shortly after taking a left and leaving the border posts far behind. We were in Syria. This was obvious not only from the fact that the Turkish border had dissapeared from view, but from the plethora of signs bearing the face of Syria's chinless dictator.
Appropriately, this looks like a scene from inside a prison
It was at this point that I left the compartment and, expressing my opinion of Bashar al-Assad, visited the bathroom to take a leak on Sovereign Syrian Soil.
take that Bashar!
Slapping on my Ipod, I began listening to Johnny Cash's immortal song about Route 66.
I been to Ad Darbasiyah, Aralik, Ras al Ain, Tell Abad and Achak,
I've been everywhere man, I've been everywhere
During the trip we ended up getting invited to the Conductor's cabin, one Osman, who has a nephew in Germany.
Osman, sitting directly under the no smoking sign, cheerfully offered us tea and cigarettes.
At one point his colleague came in, looked at their battered Samovar, and pronounced it "Kaput," throwing it out the window and returning with another one that, to my eye, looked no less Kaput.
We shared out crappy store bought cookies with the pair, they gave us tea, bread, and fruit, all the while cheerfully throwing the detritus of their meal onto the Syrian plain.
Every time we passed local Syrian shepherds, which was often, they would wave at the train cheerfully, waves and greetings which were returned by the passengers. They may well have been related, separated only by politics and other things asinine.
Eventually we returned permanently to Turkey and, having dipped out toes some days before in the frigid Tigris, crossed over its famous sister, the broad Euphrates river.
The Euphrates, though not as broad and mighty here as it is in Iraq, is clear, placid, and sky blue. Once it crosses the border it becomes muddy, turbulent.
At 7:30, after a very interesting ride indeed, we came finally to Gaziantep station.